3/3/10 Small Man Angels Abound

This is the most recent post so don't start here.  Start under March postings and read from the post at the bottom of the page up...

See photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/48184061@N02/

When I arrived in Pucallpa I knew that man angels existed and I have been so lucky to have a few long term ones in my life already. My 2 dads are serious man angels and my friend Dan make 3 man angels that I love dearly. However, I could never have known that man angels would be sent my way so frequently here in Peru! Small man angels abound.

Small Man Angel #1- Jose Antonio, Anita’s husband who doesn’t cease to sense when I feel crappy. He just knows and then he comes and finds me to help. Also, when he heard I love peanut butter, he went to the only store in Pucallpa that sells it. Their selection includes: Jiffy creamy, Jiffy crunchy, Skippy, and Peter Pan. He asked the store worker which peanut butter was the tastiest and brought me home Peter Pan Honey Roast Creamy, an excellent recommendation from the only grocery store in town!

Small Man Angel #2 – Raul - Ruli, friend of Ana Luz. We met at the dinner table of Anita’s house. We were chatting when I proceeded to vomit voraciously in the backyard. Small Man angel #2 watched me vomit after having just met me and has proceeded to call me every single day to check in on me. He is a nurse and I guess vomiting women don't bother him so much.

Small Man angel #3 – Daniel, dance instructor and smallest of all the small man angels, though very big in spirit and moves his butt like no man angel I have ever met. You saw pictures of him in my Porn Peru posting. He introduced me to La Saya. The first night Janneth and I went out with him he introduced us to all his dancing friends. The women were in their traditional dance costumes, which includes an enormous amount of eye glitter. Don’t be shocked everyone, but I LOVE eye glitter. When I complimented the dancers' eyes, man angel #3 took a sample of their eye shadow directly from their eyes and brushed it on my wrist. It was such a lovely moment. His glitter gesture gave me the man angel idea, so in a way, man angel #3, Daniel, created the concept of man angels in my mind. WOW! Or as they say here, !Pucha!

Small Man Angel #4 – Jorge, friend of my neighbor David who helps me with my Spanish sometimes. Jorge is from Iquitios but has spent his life learning English from tourists with whom he has worked throughout Peru. Jorge and I met in passing and passing one another on the street has become our theme. Not a day goes by that I don’t see Jorge randomly! The first day I met him, we ran into one another later in the day and enjoyed dinner together. The next day, I was having a rough day, left work hurriedly with thick tears in my eyes and as I opened the big steel door to the office of INMED, there he was, small man angel #4, walking to his basketball training session at a park nearby. He is a group leader for boys basketball and other teen boy activities around town. His smile alone cheers me up.

Thank you Universe/Goddess/Love/God/Pucallpa/Peru for sending me so many lovely small man angels.

I will try to keep posts coming everyone.  Thank you for reading!  I leave for the jungle tomorrow and won't have communication access during the weeks.  I will be back in the city every Saturday and Sunday

2/28/10 Last Day to Dump Water on Your Neighbors Head

Today marked the closing of Carnival and left me with irreplaceable memories.  Left Monte de Los Olivos at 5am and arrived in Pucallpa for breakfast.  Enjoyed my typical peanut butter spread on a white bun chased with peach tea loaded with sugar.  I LOVE peach tea.  Slept the morning away and awoke to a barbeque a brewin’ in the courtyard of my house.  YUM!  Beef heart and chicken, yucca, potatoes, corn, and rice all grilled to perfection quickly filled my very happy belly.  Though I still prefer not to know exactly what kind of meat I am eating, at the very least I am acclimating slightly and don’t want to vomit when I figure out it’s beef heart for lunch or duck lips for dinner J.

Every Sunday the mama of this casa invites me to “da la vuelta, no mas” and off we go. It’s like our 50s style Sunday drives only in Motocar.  We load up the kids and moto around the city for an hour.  The idea is to catch a break from the sometimes intolerable heat and enjoy the breeze that the speed of the motocar provides.  I have learned to always say yes to any invitation as I never quite know what adventure is in store for me.  However, today I actually felt pretty self-assured and coolio because this time I knew what we were off to do.  Habits are forming, I´m getting the hang of things here, starting to have a clue you know.  Well, as you can imagine, I didn’t have a clue.  We stopped off at Ascela’s sister´s house and no sooner than exiting the motocar was I DRENCHED in the festivities of Carnival which include dousing friends and family members (or even anyone that walks by) with buckets of water.  OK.  I HATE being uncomfortable.  I’ve never particularly enjoyed getting wet.  I don’t like being messy.  I meticulously dry my body after I get out of the shower.  You get the idea.  But I LOVED THIS DAY.  Grandmas, Greatgrandmas, Dads, moms, sisters, brothers, and kids.  We were ALL soaked and laughing and dousing and laughing and drinking beer of course, and dousing again and laughing.  Most of the streets here are bumpy dirt roads so there was some mud bathing going on, some beer dousing, you name it.  Motocars would pass and they would get doused too.  It was hilarious.  And then we began the dancing around the tree again which you all are already well-versed in.  I cut down my second Carnival tree today.  I really AM a deforester now.

Alas, cleaned up and went into town for my daily dose of my reincarnated grandmothers chocolate cake and here I am happy and clean in my bed ready for sleep.

Goodnight!

2/27/10 Beth the DeForester

Today I gave my presentation at the hospital.  It went great!  I wish I could have recorded the faces of my audience as they looked at photos of many different birth positions.  They were enthusiastic about the new information and various ways of birthing.  However, they couldn't believe that 99% of our births occur in hospitals and only 1% in homes and birth centers. This is their current goal in Peru and they were astounded when I told them that many CNMs in the US are working to get normal low-risk birth OUT of the hospital where more risky interventions and infections can occur.   I'm not sure what the statistic is in Ucayali, but Anita says that about 30% of births are in homes attended by family members or traditional birth attendants and the rest are institutional.  My audience also couldn't believe that studies show that birth is as safe in homes and birth centers as long as their is a CNM attending.  They LOVED my stories of the water births I have attended.  Thank you to Joy and Geri for sending me GREAT photos and sample presentations.  I used many of the photos and the powerpoints gave me great ideas. 

After saying goodbye to my sweet Josefina doggy at the hospital and all my friends, I rushed back to the house to get ready for the anniversary celebration at Monte de Los Olivos.  Janneth put a beautiful braid in my hair. 

Arrived for the festivities and had no idea that I would be in the hot seat!  I sat in one of the prime seats, on display with all the official head honchos of Ucayali.  The governor gave a speech, then the mayor gave a speech, then another somebody made a speech, then Anita made a speech, and then… They passed the microphone to me!!!  Oh!  So, then I made a speech.  I wonder what I said…

The community named me Godmother of the Casa de Espera.  What an honor! 

In addition to it being the 23rd anniversary of Monte de Los Olivos, it was also the last weekend of Carnival.  Each year every community or neighborhood of Peru plants a tree to be decorated on the last Sunday of Feb Carnival and each year everyone dances around the tree at 6pm and takes turn cutting it down with an axe.  The decorations include Tupperware plates, cups, sievs, candy, rice, and more.  As the tree hits the ground, everyone runs to grab the decorations.  It’s reminiscent of piñata parties when the candy hits the ground so do all the kids.

We danced the night away and by the time we wanted to go home, all the motocar drivers were too drunk to take us, so I spent my first night in my little jungle house.

Photos – My captive audience at the hospital.  Presentation at hospital.  Preparing for Olivos anniversary later that morning, Me with all the officials at Olivos, Tony Tan (Godfather and former governor of Ucayali) and I breaking the bottle of champagne to initiate the Casa de Espera, Anita and I, the decorated tree we cut down, me dancing with an axe in my hand…

2/26/10 La Saya – Peru Porn

Daniel is my dance teacher at Erika’s spa, the gym where Janneth and I go for our bi-weekly dance aerobic classes.  To start, Erika’s “Spa” is fascinating.  Did you all know that I worked at Thrillseekers climbing gym on Broadway for years?  I did.  And if we can call that old x-rated theatre turned climbing gym a spa, then we can call Erika’s of Pucallpa a spa too.  Or, if we can call any old hole-in-the-wall gym on Broadway a spa, then Erika’s is a match!  Here in Pucallpa, Erika’s “eSpa” is high class and I feel at home.  Thrillseekers was a second home to me in college so it’s perfect that I have found another Thrillseekers right here in my new home.  Our dance class costs $1.30.  No membership required. 

Daniel, my dance teacher is a rock star.  He runs into class with his dance shoes, socks pulled half-way up to his knees, and his short and red and TIGHT work-out shorts with the white stripes down the side.  He’s about 4’10” maybe.  I love him and hope that one day I can shake my booty the way he can.    

After my last dance class with Daniel (see photos of my BIG white person self in class) he invited Janneth and I to a dance practice at his friend’s house.  Last week we met all his dancing friends at the kick-off dance competition for a traditional sierra dance called La Saya.  His friend’s group is called Sensación and they really are a sensation!  The dance is beautiful and lively.  They practice 7 days a week for 3-5 hours every night.  One of their mom´s cleared out her backyard and that is where they choreograph barefoot under the moon.  This particular night, after they finished practice, a few of them stayed to teach me a few steps.  You can see exactly how the night progressed.  "Porn Peru" I call it as I started the evening with all of my clothes on and ended the evening with my undies showing under my traditional Saya dress. WOAH!

2/24/10 - Fumigation at hospital. Last La Guardia. 4 babies.

I have been well for days, tum-a-tum happy and now I can officially share a secret with you all.  I have kept the secret for way too long in Beth time.  It’s sort of two secrets wrapped up into one.  Ready?

My grandma, Signe, has been reincarnated and works in the kitchen of our largest heladeria here in Pucallpa named Ces’t Si Bon.  Seriously!

I have discovered one of the most amazing, delicious, soft, perfect, delightful, rich but not too rich, heavenly Torta de Chocolate (cakes) EVER and I sneak into town and eat it every single day at least once.  My grandma is the only person that has ever made a chocolate cake that makes me crazy and this one comes darn close to the goodness she created.  Grandma is surely here with me.  It’s so like her to set up shop in a famous sweet station and get to her boogy bakin’ ways.  She was always a busy woman and I am so happy to have her here!  See the picture of my Signe cake and I. 

This is my last week at the hospital and I am SO relieved.  I have learned a tremendous amount.  In all hospitals I think, birth is so the same in some ways and yet so very different (here) as well.  There is a lot of what I perceive to be abuse. I get a deep pit in my stomach, hollow and haunting, and I want to run away and take these mamas with me!  I believe that in order to promote institutional birth, we need to examine how to change birth culture in hospitals all over the world to start.  Women are scared and need support that they aren't often receiving.  I hope that I created a little pocket of love for women and babes whenever I could.  And perhaps in all the crazy newness that I suggested or exemplified, I planted a seed in the minds of my fellow Midwives and Interns.  Certainly they have planted many seeds in mine and shared so much patience and kindness with me. 

This week I had 2 night shifts.  The first was a super slow night, but a woman came in for a C birth and I scrubbed in for a front row seat.  See my photos.  It was a beautifully conducted C section with my favorite Dr. Perez. 

2 nights later, I spent my last and busiest night at the hospital attending 4 births and working with Alex the intern who attended the other 4.  Paperwork is out of control here and though I have finally learned how to write all my notes in Spanish (history, physical, soap notes, etc) it still takes me a really long time.  Ugggggh.  But… I can write medical notes in Spanish!!!!!  After explaining my work with INMED and my passion for empowering women in birth the Midwife working that night wanted to watch me do a vertical birth and had me convinced that the women I delivered could chose their birth positions.  Unfortunately, when we discovered that each one was complete, the Midwife would tell me that there wasn’t time after all for a vertical birth.  DARN IT!!!!  One primip REALLY wanted to squat and the Midwife wouldn’t let her.  I think there is so much fear around new positions here because they don’t see it often and have certainly never done it.  They tell me that it’s done frequently in the mountains and in the jungle, but almost never in the hospital.   She did let me pass a baby right to mom after birth and delay cutting the cord, which I thought was exciting after hanging babies upside down for a month.  The one mom to whom I offered her baby right after birth didn´t want anything to do with it!!!!  She was freaked out by the idea.  DARN IT AGAIN! 

Morning came and L and D was packed and nurses were bustling (ajetreo cintinuo – hustle and bustle).  Nurses had moved the waiting benches outside and were shooing people out.  Then came the beds complete with woman and babe – they wheeled them right on outside!  I thought, “OH, very interesting, they just wheel the whole bed out when there isn’t room inside anymore.”  It’s always fascinating to compare what my mind thinks is happening to what ACTUALLY happens in this Pucallpa world.  Well, my intern friends grabbed my hand and led me outside with everyone else and it was then that I saw the smoke billowing from every hospital pore.  And so…. What is your mind thinking?....  NOPE!  Not a fire.  Fumigation time!!!!  It was 6am and the fumigators were doing there regular round of bug killing.  That sealed the deal for me.  I was OUTIE, OUT, CHAU (they spell it like this here “chau”), Goodbye, hasta luego, OUT.  And I said goodbye as I held my breath and walked out of the big hospital gates. See pics of the fumigation!

Don’t worry, I returned the next day to give me BIG FINAL presentation…       

2/21/10 Agua in Aguaytia

Just returned from my trip with Janneth and Adrianne (her 9-year-old son) and we had a BLAST.  Arose from the stiff as a board bed with an equally stiff as a board body this morning.  We slowly got ourselves put together for the day, bathing suits to play in the river and a pair of dry clothes.  I lathered up in sunscreen and off we went.  Started our day in a breakfast café where a little cockroach popped out of the sugar bowl as Adrianne spooned crystals into what they call coffee here (looked like tea to me).  Mmmmmmm.  And I wonder what is causing my stomach cramps…  Nonetheless, great breakfast cake that I was happy to feed my parasite friends hatching in my belly J.  See the photo of our cockroach breakfast.

See pictures of our car trip to Aguaytia too - me and a LONG line of cars along the ONLY road to Lima, the capital of Peru.  Work is always in progress on this road and many parts are dirt and more than bumpy.  Beautiful jungle!  Adrianne and Janneth in the car. In Peru, it’s SO not cool to smile for a picture.  Keep that in mind.  The wind was blowing in my shirt on the way there and my boobs were getting BIGGER every moment.  How can I not share that with you all.  See the photo!  Next, the little town of Aguaytia.  Our arrival!  Evening phoosball championship. 

Caught a cab to the falls and BOOOOOOM, down came the rain.  The cab plopped us off in a tunnel just before the falls and promised us 2 things… 

1. The rain would pass quickly.
2. He would return in 30 minutes to scoop our soaked bodies up and take us back to the hotel.

As you all have guessed, neither of those things came to pass but we didn’t know that yet so we geared up for a soaking in our complete and utter ignorance, laughing and splashing and having a great time.  The falls were beautiful and the rain brought out all my favorite colors again, greens and browns and blues rich.  Headed back to the refuge of the dark tunnel, changed into our dry clothes, goose bumps a-plenty, and waited eagerly for our guaranteed ride back to town.  And we waited…

And waited…

And “Here he is!!!!!!  That’s our car I’m sure!!!!  YAY YAY YAY!!!!!!”  Picked up our bags as the car slowed, honked, passengers stared at us as we realized that this was not our car nor was there space for us inside.  Honk.

And so we waited…

And waited…

More cars came, honking trucks, honking busses.  They all passed slowly, stopping, looking, galking, honking…

One truck with passengers even stopped, honked, rolled down the window, snapped a photo of us, and then went on it’s way…  WHAT!!!!!!!

And so we waited some more…

We waited 2 hours.  And we aren’t dumb.  We started fishing for a ride after a half hour or so, but all vehicles were full or only wanted to gaze at our drenched and nearly naked bodies and/or snap a photo.   See my fun photos!  I think the yellow triangle sign in the waterfall photo says “Beth, CAREFUL!!  You might die here today with your friends.” J

Finally, a BEAUTIFUL and lovely family in a motocar stopped to check on us genuinely concerned for our safety.  At this point we had just started to walk through the very dark tunnel to the nearest town and were ecstatic, though worn out.  The motocar was full in my mind, but one can apparently never underestimate the capacity of a motocar.  Though motocars are seemingly made for 3 passengers and some fresh bananas in back, they are most often filled with 6-9 passengers, a banana TREE in the back and more cargo attached by rope to the sides J.  Adrianne hopped in the cabby and Anita and I hopped on the back and stood on the trunk for the next few kilometers.  WHO KNEW!!!!  See photos again! 

Arrived home safely only to discover that I was to be assistant to minor surgery on my favorite little hombrecito Valentino who had Isangos all over his genitals and nether region.  Poor guy.  Now, I have been warned about Isangos and I have heard the Isango horror stories.  I have been informed that I too will experience the horror of Isangos soon.  Nonetheless, this was my first true reality of the Isango saga.  THEY SUCK!!!!!!!!  I can’t figure out what they are in English.  TRIVIA TIME people.  Tiniest little red devils I’ve ever seen that burrow into your skin and cause a welt.  They love genitals and underarms, including nipples!  Great.  And I am sure to have them.  The cure is to pick them out of your skin or splash alcohol and then pick them out of your skin.  They are about 0.5mm.  (Today is 3/3/10 and I just figured out that these red devils are a type of mite (ácaro)).

Poor Valentino!!!

Must be off.  Ascela’s husband died exactly one month ago and there is a mass for him tonight at the main Cathedral in Pucallpa.  I am honored that the family has invited me.  Jeans here have a different meaning than jeans in the US and you can wear them to work, to school, to bed, to a famous person´s house, to your sister´s wedding, to the farm, and to the mass of your friend’s deceased husband.  So, that’s what I am wearing, jeans.  Hotty jeans that I bought in Aguaytia because hotty is just what you wear here and my US jeans don’t fit me anymore.  SPA PERU.

Beth

2/21/10 – Preparty Aguaytia

Photos aren't posting everyone!  I have spent the day troubleshooting and motocar-ing around to different internet places to no avail.  Alas, See my flicker account to view the rest of the photos.  Thanks! I will try to post more photos on my flicker account so keep looking! 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/48184061@N02/

I am using this opportunity to post pre-party Aguaytia photos.  We are waiting for our collective cab to pick us up for our rode trip to Aguaytia, a little hilly town in the jungle about 4 hours from Pucallpa.  YAY!  See pictures of Anita, Anita´s daughter (Ana Luz) in the purple dress, Anita´s half sister (Janneth), the son of Ana Luz (Arturo) and I laughing, and a few lovelies sitting at the dining room table for breakfast. 

I’m not sure that I’ve explained my living situation fully.  I sleep at the house across the street from Anita’s house with Ascela who you all have met previously, but I basically live at Anita’s house.  Anita’s family cooks, so I pay them for my 3 meals a day.  Anita lives in Monte de Los Olivos during the week and at her house in Pucallpa during the weekends.  Her family of 6, as described above live in a tiny 2-bedroom house with concrete floors and a dining room that also functions as the kitchen.  The only other room in the house is converted into an internet café.  They live comfortably and happily and there is always room for more, like me.  They all sleep together in a total of 3 beds, 2 doubles and 1 single.  They have a small dog, 3 cats, and 1 brand new crippled baby grey kitty who was born to one of the 3 big cats.  Her back legs are deformed and don’t function.  She scoots around joyfully playing with her mom and my feet.  Stray dogs come to visit when there is food cooking… there is always room for more.  Other kids come to play in the small house… there is always room for more.  Uncles, aunts, cousins, nephews, nieces, grandparents and friends are always visiting... there is always room for more! We all sit around the table that fills the kitchen-dining room and enjoy our time together.  Despite the concrete floors, the wooden walls, the out-house for a bathroom, the small space, I am overwhelmed by the fact that in this house and in this country there is ALWAYS room for more.  Love is without boundaries here and I am so grateful to be a part of this family. 

2/20/10 - I swallowed an IUD

OH MY!

I had an IUD once not too long ago and MAN did that thing cause some SERIOUS uterine cramps.  I would be in the middle of conversation and one could see my eyes roll back in my head as I suffered the grip of my very own uterus.  For this reason, I believe that I have swallowed an IUD.  I’m seriously pretty sure.  My tummy cramps just won’t quit.  I am putting myself back on Cipro just to cut the waves.  Any ideas, smart family and friends?

Spent the week doing mostly Paps and family planning clinics at the hospital.  I think that’s where I swallowed the IUD!!!!  Just joking…They don’t have IUDs here.  Resource issue and I see one of the many future grants I will be writing.  I need to start writing the emergency birth control grant for Pucallpa too.  Abortion is illegal and we all know what that means.  Add the lack of adoption services…

Spent a little time in Sala de Parto and delivered a few more beautiful little babes.  Labor and Delivery continues to be difficult for me though.  The suffering of women and the use of older OB practices are so challenging.  Additionally, this is a yelling kind of culture.  We all have our weird little things, and yelling is one of their “things.”  They yell a lot - up the stairs to see if I am still sleeping, down the stairs, when you are standing nearby or far away, and sometimes even within whisper range.

Honking by ALL automobiles is favored here as well.  Yep just heard a few honks as I type.  You honk to tell people you are driving by, you honk when you pass one block and start another, you honk when you pass a random stranger, you just honk and then you honk some more for no apparent reason.  So I think of the yelling as a form of honking only from your mouth.  It makes the yelling a little cuter.  Mouth honking. 

Still, mouth honking in labor and birth just isn’t my style and I struggle with it.  Also, I have repaired too many unnecessary episiotomies, had too many mama’s on their backs pushing… and could go on and on about what I have experienced.  I have asked the Midwifery director if I can give a presentation about Birth in the US, similarities and differences, and plan to highlight Midwifery practice, vertical birth, water birth, mom-baby bonding immediately after birth, waiting to cut cord, and why we don’t cut epis anymore.  I have been discussing the differences in practice with the Midwives and Interns here since I arrived and everyone is excited for my presentation.  I will let you know how it goes!

Also, I don’t think I have mentioned that women at this hospital don’t have the option to have an epidural.  Resources are too slim.  For this reason, it’s an IDEAL place for vertical birth.  On a different note and just for those of you who are curious, there is only 1 NST machine and it might be the first one EVER made ;).  Monitoring babe doesn’t happen much, even with Pit practically free flowing.  We just got a shipment of hand-held dopplers and they are considered golden, almost untouchable.  We mostly use the cone and our stethoscopes still (which I have finally mastered).  Imagine, remove the Pit from within arms reach and natural beautiful birth could really happen here.  We’ve already got great music playing constantly – salsa, cumbia, latin rock… Add more baby listening, more education, some massage, a little less mouth honking, disassemble those scary birth tables and magic could happen! 

Despite the challenges, I LOVE the people with whom I work.  Here are more photos of all of my hospital friends.  Also see photo of the room and the table on which women deliver.  The woman in purple, Christina, is a Midwife who worked in the communities of the Andes and has lots of experience with vertical birth, not cutting epis, etc.  She’s helping me with my presentation.  She’s lovely.

2/17/10 - MotoButt

Beth’s Motorcycle Diaries Part 1

I have officially fallen in love with zipping around Pucallpa and Yarinacocha on the back of a motorcycle.  That sentence completes my motorcycle diaries, but I thought I would share nonetheless as the ride has become my refuge, relaxation, sunset soaking time, and full body massage.

Beth’s Motorcycle Diaries Part 2

Yesterday Jose Antonio and I went to Monte de Los Olivos via motorcycle.  The first part of the trip was AMAZING.  Clouds made the jungle colors pop out in deep greens and browns.  Then I realized that my butt sure did hurt after the hour on the highway and half hour of four wheeling on a two-wheeler.  Still, I LOVE the moto life I lead here.

Anita had a USAID (NonGovernmentalOrganization, NGO) assessment on Wed so Jose and I went to document the occasion and support her amazing and successful efforts to improve the communities in the jungle.  We left the house at 5am and arrived to Monte early.  Helped Anita prepare and soon it was time for USAID to arrive.  The whole community was waiting and had also been preparing.  Apparently USAID comes once a year to interview large groups of community members (including kids).  After the interviews, they go to individuals houses to do community health assessments – asking where the family keeps their trash, do they have a toilet area, how do they clean their water and cook their food, etc.  It was a busy day full of activities and I was happy to get to know some of the USAID projects and people behind them.  USAID has a HUGE presence all over Peru and like INMED-ANDES are doing amazing things. 

See photos of Anita presenting, interview of mom’s at the casa de espera (the pink room), photo of a well-kept large garden outside a Olivos family’s home, a large but typical kitchen, and Anita and Jose resting in our little house in the jungle after a long day.

Moto Diaries Part 3

Jose and I hopped back on the bike.  My butt hurt even worse on the way home and is in a physical therapy program now called Beth's MotoButt. 1-2-3 MotoButt!

2/15/10 – Madrina = Godmother

And I am officially one now!  First time Proud Auntie in December and first time proud Godmother in Feb.

Thought I was headed for a Sunday of rest after a long night of shaking my booty this way and that way when I received an early morning call from Janneth (Anita’s sister who shook her booty with me all night).  “Get dressed and get your worn out self over to Anita’s house to attend a birth in Monte de Los Olivos!”   I got dressed and rushed over to Anita’s house to find Mercith, a term pregnant lovely resident of Los Olivos who had come to Pucallpa with her husband in their family’s run-down taxicab because…  Well, I realize now that I have no idea why they came down to the city.  There could be lots of reasons…  Anyway, I assessed her with another Midwife friend and we diagnosed her with pregnancy induced hypertension (at the least) and late term, and accompanied her to Yarinacocha hospital.   There, she was induced and I returned to the hospital later that evening to labor support her and deliver her sweet little baby girl, Francis, on Saint Valentines Day.  

Francis was diagnosed with Down’s Syndrome the following day and the day after that the diagnosis was revoked, but they spent a few days in the hospital observing baby Francis.  Moms that have recovered but stay with their babes in the hospital after 24 hours sleep on the hard floor in a room together.  So, Mercith was recovering from Pre-eclampsia, pregnancy and delivery and sleeping on the floor with only a sheet under her for 2 days before she got to take the very bumpy ride home to Los Olivos.  Imagine!  I can’t.

See pictures of Mercith, baby Francis and I in the hospital on a bed before her 24 hours was up (that’s a thermometer in Mercith’s mouth not a cigarette).  Baby Francis with the dress her Godmother brought her and then 2 weeks later at a party in Monte de Los Olivos.  You can see the whole family from left to right, big sister of baby Franicis (Brisset), dad to Francis and Brisset (Manuel), Mercith and babe, and Mercith’s mom.  They are looking healthy and happy after a stressful few days in the hospital!

My name in Monte de Los Olivos is Elicha.  That’s the native way of making a name cute and lovey.  Take off the end of the name and add –cha to women and –uco to men.  “yooooco’ is the man pronunciation, like yucca only with an o at the end. 

 

2/8/10 ER Episode #1 and hopefully the #1 and only

Finally HELLO again Colorado!!!!

 

I am going to attempt to catch you all up.  So much has happened and I hope I can remember the good stuff. 

 

Sick again in early February and I’m fairly sure I didn’t eat for a full week.  Uggggh.  SPA BETH PERU as my sister calls it!  I’m tan and on an unintentional weight loss program J.  Broke out in a wicked rash all over my body that everyone in Peru calls “INTOXICADO” so I got to be the INTOXICADO lady for a week in addition to everyone laughing hysterically that I was from Colorado and the color “Colorado” too.  It was a rough start but a funny one!  (I’m sure the rash was from the Bactrim, no more Bactrim thank you).  See the photo of my room (and the windy stairs that lead to my room) where I spent my days moaning and where live now.

 

Finally decided to hit the ER but ONLY to request a 3-day parasite lab test.  They weren’t into just giving me my parasite jars, so I had to go thru the whole workup.  Darn you medical professionals.  I refused the IV and the lab draw considering the state of my immune system and the lack of hand washing that happens here.  After a quick 30-minute exam and conversation I had procured my parasite samples, HAH!  Sweet!  I asked the very kind doctor if I could pay for the services and he showed me to the bathroom J.  That’s how good my Spanish is getting people.   I know you’re jealous now!!!!!

 

Discovered that I had some kind of amoeba, but had already started cipro and was recuperating rapidly.  Apparently that’s all I needed.  YAY Cipro!!!!!  Boo or better yet Poooooo Bactrim ;)

 

In the few hours of health that I was granted, Ascela took me to see the “lanchas” that ship out daily taking people and papayas to Iquitos (a beautiful jungle town in northern Peru that I hope to see one day soon, the trip is 3-5 days by river and apparently breathtakingly beautiful).  See photo of Ascela and I.  Vale came along too.  Also see my pretty nails that Janneth fixes up for me every few days.  

Loving you all!!!!